Monthly Archives: March 2015

A convenience store with a suite of digital services such as click & collect, RFID and mobile payments, could be on the cards from Amazon, according to Re-Code.

With the launch of Periscope by Twitter, real-time social feeds just got a whole lot more interesting for the fashion and retail industries, that are currently gearing up for digital activity around fashion week season, says Decoded Fashion.

Tinder-commerce, integrated media campaigns and Retail Lab style phygital spaces were just some of the buzz themes at SXSW this year. Fashion&Mash and JWTIntelligence have some interesting conference takeouts.

UK retail sales are buoyant as high street sales surge, reports the FT.

I’ve been bigging up the importance of virtual retail for some time, so it’s great to see Westfield embracing the notion with its latest Future Fashion phygital installation taking place this week and next, at the White City and Stratford London shopping centre locations.

Future Fashion at Westfield, London

The VR experience is courtesy of digital specialists Inition (the team behind Topshop’s virtual LFW show experience in February 2014), and allows visitors to the designated Future Fashion area, to try out the spring/summer 15 fashion themed virtual worlds created especially for Westfield. Users can try on the Oculus Rift headsets and immerse themselves in a denim hued or floral world that twists and turns as users gesture with their hands forwards, backwards or left to right.

Future Fashion at Westfield, London

‘Consumers are more tech savvy than ever before, a third of shoppers will walk out of a store that has no wifi,’ says Myf Ryan, marketing director for Westfield UK. ‘Digital is such an integrated part of people’s lives, it’s all about enhancing that digital shopping journey for our customers,’ she continues. ‘With the Future Fashion promotion we wanted to push the boundaries of how people interact with the latest technology. We know that 57% of our customers respond to interactive digital displays, so we wanted to make that aspect more fun and connect it back to our shopping app, Edit Me, where they can personalise that shopping visit. Westfield’s continued focus on digital is a key part of our experience strategy where services such as click and collect and online curation keep people coming back to our shopping centres,’ she says.

Future Fashion at Westfield, London

The Retail Planner verdict: The Future Fashion promotion is a highly phygital showcase for how VR might become more integrated into the future shopping experience. With these kind of experimental digital exercises coming out of the Westfiled Labs R&D department in San Francisco, the retailer is showing it is a phygital first company where digitizing the experience for customers is a key part of their engagement strategy.

Addition: Marketing Magazine has produced a great behind the scenes video of how Inition installed it all.

YouTubers from the popular AwesomnessTV channel are the latest focus at experiential concept store Story in New York, where the Your Story youth campaign has just kicked off.

Your Story with AwesomenessTV

Your Story features six of AwesomenessTV’s style creatives from the worlds of fashion, beauty, interiors, jewellery and photography. The editorial style pop-up concept aims to bring the young stars’ short career journeys to life, via curated areas of product and interactive displays.

The six AwesomenessTV stars each highlight their favourite products for dedicated areas that include phygital, interactive elements such as a vertical projection display by digital retail specialist Perch Interactive, and a photo booth by PHHHOTO that projects customer selfies onto the store’s wall. Your Story also showcases the six stars’ stories with the help of Brooklyn illustrator Samantha Hahn who re-created each of them in watercolour for portraits that are hung in their dedicated store area. The effect is like a busy, curated gallery where each personality comes to life through product and visual merchandising.

Fashion and lifestyle vlogger Meg DeAngelis chose to feature product from Dylan’s Candy Bar and appeared in-store for a live candy making event with the brand’s founder Dylan Lauren. Menswear channel host Connor Franta styled pieces from 3D scanning tailoring retailer Supply System and Amanda Steele took a similarly bespoke theme for her association with women’s clothing site Bow & Drape. Jewellery star Ingrid Nilsen featured products from fashion jewellery brand BaubleBar and DIYer Brit Morin launched her new book alongside a 3D makeup printing workshop by Mink founder Grace Choi. Alli Simpson featured her favourite products from beauty brand Julep and Sawyer Hartman chose various products to help customers take quality selfies.

‘We wanted the experience to visually connect the digital with the physical world,’ explained Rachel Shechtman, founder of Story. ‘Samantha’s artwork expresses these online personalities in a fresh and personal way to encourage the discovery of these talented individuals offline,’ she continued.

The Retail Planner verdict: This phygital, experiential retail concept is a timely showcase of the impact that vloggers and YouTube itself, is having on consumer culture. The retail showcase by Story is an offline celebration of all things digital, showing just how important new digital career opportunities will be to future consumers – of all ages.

Retail design agency Dalziel & Pow has created a 2D manifestation of what emotional, playful interactivity in the retail space looks like.

Dalziel & Pow: The Future of Retail 3D wallpaper at Retail Expo 2015

To surprise and delight customers is a well-worn retail mantra, and to discover an entertaining and charming digital form of storytelling housed in a physical store format, was a delightful showcase idea by the retail design specialists at last week’s Retail Expo.

‘It’s a way to engage and capture the imagination of customers, while they browse in-store, says David Wright, marketing director for D&P. ‘It also helps brands tell their current stories in a playful way and the content can be tweaked and updated as promotions come and go,’ he says.

The Retail Planner verdict: This playful showcase of how D&P thinks and works is a compelling live demonstration that shows off the agency’s phygital credentials. It ticks boxes for both consumer behaviour and retail industry expertise.

Google has finally succumbed to the allure of phygital retail. The tech giant has opened its first permanent bricks and mortar location in collaboration with Currys PC World.

Google Shop at Dixons Carphone Warehouse

Actually it’s more of a shop-in-shop but the Google space has a focus on one-to-one sales, that will make its first physical shop special for its tuition-based, experiential appeal. The ‘interactive doodle wall’ is a fun and entertaining pull, where visitors can use digital spray cans to get creative on a personal mural; there is also the multiple-screened Portal attraction, where users can transport themselves anywhere in the world via a quick aerial flight on Google Earth. There are of course plenty of Chromebooks, Chromecasts and Android phones and tablets to play with, as well as smart watches to try on and test.

Retail Planner verdict: At last we have a blueprint for what Google Retail looks and feels like. It’s about time. The one-to-one interaction and focus on experience will sell Google’s hardware products to customers who prefer personal interaction Plus the educational element to the shop fit will win over future generations.

Has gender-neutral fashion reached fever pitch? Ever the zeitgeist, Selfridges has its finger on the trend pulse with new store-wide campaign Agender, its gender-neutral creative concept in association with Studio Toogood.

Agender by Studio Toogood at Selfridges

Billed as a campaign that presents fashion, beauty and lifestyle products free from any gender directives, Selfridges is setting the retail bar for its brave exploration of the new rules of feminine, masculine and the interplay in between.

‘What we have noticed from a retail perspective is that a lot of women are shopping on the men’s floors,’ says Linda Hewson, creative director at Selfridges, who turned to creative director and store designer Faye Toogood to collaborate on a physical manifestation of this blurring between gender distinctions.

Agender by Studio Toogood at Selfridges

Agender by Studio Toogood at Selfridges

Agender by Studio Toogood at Selfridges

Agender by Studio Toogood at Selfridges

With its abstract design-meets-art gallery space wrapping the central atrium on the first, second and third floors, Toogood’s concept is testament to what statement retail design can do to foster imagination. The spaces are conceived as ‘houses’ including wardrobes, shelving units and doors inside, while the exterior is made from chicken-wire as a framework to distinguish the Agender areas from the rest of the store. There are abstract sculptures dotted around from pink vulcanised rubber shapes to horsehair and earthy, primal pieces with an Art Brut feel. ‘It’s about trying to pare back the superficial layers of polish and branding, and by doing so, reveal something that is innate,’ says designer, Faye Toogood.

Toogood says she wanted the space to have the feel of an archive, ‘to reflect the curatorial decisions that go into any fashion edit.’ She purposefully removed branding, references to gender differences and merchandising, to allow the garments to speak for themselves. ‘In the 21st century we’re increasingly aware that gender is not a binary, and the way we choose to present ourselves as individuals shouldn’t be constrained by the artificial divisions of society or commerce.’

Toogood’s branding for Agender is dominated by rough sketches, masking tape and scrapbook-style collections of makeshift labelling – all contributing to the archival mood.

Unmarked, unbranded garment bags have the affect of democratising choice for Agender shoppers, who will have to rely on instinct when they pick one of the neutral waxed linen hanging bags. It’s a clever tactic that removes merchandising assumptions or any pre-conceived brand messaging.

The Agender window scheme turns the VM approach on its head too. Without mannequins the windows convey the abstract gender-neutral theme of the campaign and invite commentary on the campaign topic from the outset.

Agender by Studio Toogood at Selfridges

‘We wanted to challenge our own understanding of retail, and contemplate the future of shopping at the same time, Hewson told me at the press launch. ‘We hope that through Agender, we’ve changed the context of shopping in store and online; by removing gender codes, our shoppers will be free to make choices based purely on personal taste,’ she explained.

What does it mean? Selfridges is setting a new retail agenda with Agender. Inspired by the raft of gender-fluid designer collections on the AW15 runways and a swirling focus on transgender identity in the media and entertainment biz, the timing is spot on. Selfridges has played some collaborative trump cards via its film partnership with Nenah Cherry and her He She Me video, while Toogood’s design-led retail concept and a foodie/art launch party courtesy of Francesca Sarti for Arabeeschi de Latte are both thought-provoking and handled with a lightness of touch that offers a contemporary lens on the non-binery conversation.

Not strictly retail but certainly an experience, the Samsung dinner at the Four Seasons hotel during Paris Fashion Week was solely aimed at techanistas or early adopter fashion bloggers, and coincided with the launch of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge mobile phone, just the week before at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona.

The fashion industry was invited to a runway show and ‘tasting dinner’, where the sleek new Galaxy S6 phone design credentials were unpacked in a suitably theatrical fashion (puffs of Co2 escaping from glass tumblers), alongside a desert tray of nibbles that were intended to mirror the choice of fashion accessories that accompany the phone. I wanted my phone to be like the miniature square short-crust biscuit with black and white chocolate topping – all compact and graphic packaging.

Samsung’s S6 Paris Fashion Week dinner

Then, after Younghee Lee, executive VP of Samsung global marketing and her design counterpart Hyanyeul Lee, VP of Samsung’s UX Innovation team talked the audience through the virtues of metal and glass for a seamless design, oh and the numerous selfie enhancements and FROW photography functionalities, an army of futuristic looking waiters delivered a wireless charger, clear casing and an actual phone to each attendee. Only then did we get to play around with the device for 10 minutes, while Jessica Stam walked up and down ‘modelling’ the phone. Samsung made the most of the assembled fashion industry and supermodels with plentiful photo opportunities and Samsung’s latest VR headsets served like the fashionable canapés (real dinner) on silver platters for guests to try out for themselves.

Samsung’s S6 Paris Fashion Week dinner

For more, read this fly on the wall report on Samsung Tomorrow’s blog.

The Retail Planner verdict: Fashion and technology are happy bedfellows in today’s fast-paced consumer electronics market. While Samsung is playing catch up to Apple in the luxury positioning stakes (with this event one month before the Apple Watch launch in April), the Galaxy S6 launch event was clever marketing with a social and digital agenda. It’s backed up by a credible partnership design strategy in the shape of its Forces of Fashion project that is a call to arms for the fashion industry to work with Samsung on future creative design collaborations and start a conversation. On that note, we can get just a tiny bit excited about the fact I was seated next to Alexander Wang’s right hand marketing woman.

Fashion and tech are now a forceful double act, inextricably linked in today’s digital consumer mindset, especially as the market for wearables gathers pace. So what will our wardrobes look like in 10 years? That was the question Grazia asked to celebrate its tenth anniversary, as part of the magazine’s #Grazia10 retrospective exhibition earlier this month.

The Future Closet installation by The Future Laboratory for #Grazia10

The ‘Future Closet’ installation was curated by The Future Laboratory and was on display as part of the Grazia10 event at London’s Getty Images Gallery, showcasing a range of innovative fashion, tech and luxury brands.

The Future Closet installation by The Future Laboratory for #Grazia10

‘We’ve seen some compelling new collaborations between technology and fashion brands who have developed devices that hide their high-tech interiors behind elegant facades,’ LS:N Global visual editor Hannah Robinson comments. ‘On the catwalk, fashion is embracing radical transparency, ethical luxury and co-opting state-of-the-art technical materials to add a sense of enchantment to apparel.’

Members of LS:N Global, Cute Circuit and London College of Fashion held a panel discussion last week to discuss what the future closet will look like and the brands to watch for future fashion innovations. Watch highlights here: Grazia10 Future of Fashion discussion

The Retail Planner verdict: Wearables are the future fashion opportunity that retailers need to watch. While innovation is slow and form or aesthetic appeal catches up with function, the principal of connected garments will be worth waiting for.

There’s a mystical mood in the cultural corners of London as technology and science are blending with alchemy and experimentalism.

During LFW I found myself having my aura tested in a pop-up boutique by science and design studio The Unseen. Founded by alchemist Lauren Bowker, who specializes in colour-changing inks that react to weather or external environments, The Unseen has just opened a permanent retail emporium at Somerset House. The witchcraft themed space houses one room for The Unseen’s new ink-treated product range, The Artefacts, that includes leather notebooks, a quill and candles that react to touch and temperature. The other room is a ‘bodily library where visitors can be fully immersed in knowledge’ and sample the collective’s unorthodox approach to merging scientific innovation and material craft.

The Unseen Emporium

For LFW The Unseen collaborated with augmented technology retail experts, Holition for an experiential installation called Eighth Sense. Central to the experience is biodata read through an EEG device that is translated visually onto The Unseen’s latest couture creation – all controlled by an app built by Holiton.

Eighth Sense by The Unseen

Eighth Sense by The Unseen

The physical conduit is a bespoke ceramic sculpture that resembles something between a cobra’s head and an armadillo and is covered in Bowker’s trademark ink. When the wearer’s aura and magnetic levels are read the sculpture slowly changes colour and responds depending on the wearer’s live data feed, showing emotions and electromagnetic energy in a rainbow spectrum. ‘For instance, red portrays anger, nerves and anxiety, whereas green reflects teaching, sociality and people, blue reveals calming thruthfulness and peace, while white mirrors and inner state of sensitivity, intuitiveness and psychic ability,’ says Bowker.

Suffice to say my reading featured a lot of green, a touch of purple and oranges that turned from gold to white. The sculpture takes the wearer’s reading in full after 10 minutes wearing the barely there EEG headpiece, but it takes a full 90 minutes for each aura to be expelled, once the results have appeared and intensified.

The Unseen Emporium

The Unseen Emporium

The by-appointment aura-reading service is free and bookable online via The Unseen Emporium. The emporium also showcases the studio’s previous works and processes including AIR – a trio of intricate leather pieces treated with wind and heat reactive ink, as well as TheUnseenSwarovski – a collaborative headpiece that features thousands of Swarovski gemstones that map brain activity.

* The Unseen Emporium is a clever mix of commerciality from creative, explorative pursuits. By producing EighthSense, the studio has found a way to harness consumers’ desire for individuality and tap into the current trend for alchemy, adding a touch of the occult while managing to merge our physical and digital worlds.

by retail_plannerMenswear gets phygital here at @mrporterlive X @clubmonaco with an early #LCM soirée celebrating the arts of grooming, style & media at the new Club Monaco boutique #effortless #cobranding